For an instant, before my whole structure of knowledge collapses in panic, I am alive inside that contradiction, dead and alive at the same time. (Elizabeth Costello, 77) I suggest that we sometimes use what we know is a nonsensical proposition in order to draw attention to its nonsensicality. Such uses tend to have a performative element. Using language in this way is like saying: “Look at what is happening to me, how my words collapse on themselves, when I’m trying to say this.” For our intention to be successful in such cases, the nonsensicality of the proposition we use is essential. This is connected to a claim that is made in several recent blog posts by Lars Hertzberg and Duncan Richter. They claim that we understand propositions that on the face of them we shouldn’t. Some of the relevant propositions are: “[Wednesday] did come, and exactly when it might be reasonably looked for,” “Is this really happening now?” "I can't believe she really agreed to marry me!" "Being human is terribly disappointing." “I wonder at the existence of the world,” and there are other relevant propositions. There is something strange about the propositions under consideration. Even more importantly, the contexts in which they are uttered make them strange. So, to give another example, there is something strange about counting and recounting the toes of a newborn, and exclaiming “she has five!” I’m not saying that it is not something that happens ordinarily. It surely does—at least for some of the cases more than others. But it seems that the semantic intention here is of a special sort. As is obvious in this last example, those propositions can have non-strange, matter-of-course, uses. But the focus of the discussion is on their strange applications. The problem that both Hertzberg and Richter face, I think, is how to (1) allow that we understand those propositions, and at the same time (2) recognize the full depth of their strangeness. Apparently, the strangeness of those propositions is logical. It is connected to a suspicion about their meaningfulness. But, on the other hand, if they are not meaningful, how is it possible that we understand them? If they have no meaning, there is no meaning to understand. My suggestion, I think, solves the problem. It shows that there is a way (actually, a family of ways) of using nonsense, so to speak: a way in which propositions may draw attention to their own nonsensicality. It shows, that is, how nonsensicality can be part of the point of an utterance. The point may be to help people to see the nonsensicality in their own propositions; or it may be to show how a situation escapes our ability to make sense of it. (I say a bit more about this here.) My suggestion has also this advantage: it shows what understanding a proposition may come to, and how deeply different this is in different cases.Objection to my suggestion: Apparently, there is this problem with my suggestion: People who come up with such propositions in the relevant contexts are not all aware of any such intention to demonstrate how their words collapse on themselves. Sometimes, perhaps, the objector may allow, people do indeed have such sophisticated intentions. Arguably, Wittgenstein in the Tractatus had such intentions—at least if we accept a resolute reading of the book. But not every parent who revels at their newborn’s toes is so philosophically sophisticated; and not every person who wonders “Who is this old face in the mirror?” has so complicated intentions. It doesn’t look as if they are trying to say something nonsensical. It really doesn’t look so. But, to answer the objection, are we always so clear about our own intentions? Elizabeth Anscombe in her introduction to the Tractatus tells this story: He [Wittgenstein] once greeted me with the question: ‘Why do people say that it was natural to think that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth turned on its axis?’ I replied: ‘I suppose, because it looked as if the sun went round the earth.’ ‘Well,’ he asked, ‘what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth turned on its axis?’ This question brought it out that I had hitherto given no relevant meaning to ‘it looks as if’ in ‘it looks as if the sun goes round the earth’. (p. 151) The example brings out at least this: we don’t always speak with full possession of our own intentions. And this suggests that there is room for a wide notion of intention, one that allows for intentions we are not aware of (not subconscious intentions, though).

Now, I’m not saying that everyone who has ever used a proposition in one of the strange ways I mentioned had such intentions. To see what a particular proposition means, we need to examine the very particular circumstances of the utterance. But the possibility exists: the possibility of using words with the intention to show how the words collapse on themselves—sometimes even if we don’t realize that this is our intention.

I should add that complete ignorance of one’s intentions here seems to me unlikely. That is, when people use the kind of language I am discussing, they typically recognize, even if vaguely, that there is something strange about it. It would not come to them as a complete surprise if we pointed that out. They may like the fact that what they say is logically a bit off, or dislike it. It may seem to them to appropriately reflect their intentions, or they may resent the fact that they can’t do better. But whatever the case might be, in the cases under discussion people are stuck with the strangeness, and, I’m suggesting, to the extent that people are so stuck, the reason for that is that it is an essential part of their intention.